Mastery of any kind is not an easy road. Getting anywhere near the vicinity of mastery is pretty…read moregrueling. And when you start it will be frustrating and somewhat demoralizing. But nothing worth having is easy, right? Known around the world for its reputation, Watts is one of the few ateliers in the country reviving the tradition of 19th century studio study in Europe.
I learned there is no 'right way to draw' in my undergrad program and I have nice, shiny diploma to prove it. But the collective energy of hundreds of years of artists like Fechin or Bouguereau have developed a way to see the human figure in greater depth and knowledge than any technique I've come across. I'm seeing my diploma has the right spirit, just not the proper guidance, so I've decided to move to Southern California to even get near this ancient knowledge I need to become a better draftsman.
I discovered Watts through a rabbit hole of instructional drawing videos and landing on a video of the owner, Jeff discussing how to be a successful artist, which had all the right affirmations I was looking for. Based on what I saw, I decided to test drive their two week boot camp in August to see if I could cut it at a place like this. I was woefully unprepared and could barely hold the conte properly, let alone put anything on paper that didn't look like seismograph output. I was overwhelmed by all of the information that I was lacking - angles, proportions, plumb lines, perspective, curves vs. straights and on and on. I nearly gave up, but Jeff and Krista encouraged me to stick it out, and with the help of the instructors and other students, I had a small breakthrough. It just took a push for me to realize I knew more than I thought and was capable of understanding their technique.
With that, I decided to move to the San Diego area to study as long as I can at Watts with a full-load of classes in the winter term. I am currently in week seven and will be here for the foreseeable future, nothing I've ever done has come close to teaching me this much. They are proponents of the Frank Reilly method of representational drawing and you work mostly in charcoal on newsprint for speed and efficiency. Mixing demos with one on one instruction, the skill you get to see inform your own work is mind-bending. There's no coddling here, so if you're a mildly skilled artist you will be humbled, but if you're looking for someone to stroke your ego (ahem, Chai T.) you may want to go to a wine & paint.
Their program is not the hardest thing I've done, but it is up there, and I have this innate desire to keep it going. I came here to hone old skills I forgot I had after nearly 15 years focusing on visual and UI design. While I am far from being proficient, the process is invigorating. You're not learning to draw, you're learning how to build a human being on paper. And the more I learn, the more I want to know - forcing the strange, underhand grip of the charcoal to put marks on paper that come close (hopefully) to what's in my head. I have a whole range of classes from 20 minute head lay-ins, figure two, three and five minute quick sketch, fundamentals, facial expressions and even painterly drawing and I'm still reeling (in the best way possible).
Jeff conjures up a certain type of energy that starts with him and permeates through the instructors down to the other students. Everyone is here to learn from the best and so willing to help one another out as no one is at the same level. I am absorbing more in two months than my whole undergrad program ever got close to, and my goal is to become proficient by the time I'm 40 and take my career in a whole different direction. If you're not serious, it may nudge you out fairly quickly, but if you have this desire to create art that you can't explain away, you will most likely find what you're looking for here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KX0MrnzBJ8M
